The Kauaʻi ʻōʻō, a small black and yellow bird with glossy feathers and a haunting song, was the last surviving member of the Hawaiian honeyeaters. This year, it was officially declared extinct.

The ōʻō was one of 21 species that the US Fish and Wildlife Service removed from the endangered species list in 2023 because they had vanished from the wild. Gone is the little Mariana fruit bat – also known as the Guam flying fox – and the bridled white-eye, which was once one of the most common birds on that island. So too, are the Scioto madtom, a diminutive, whiskered catfish that lived in Ohio, and the Bachman’s warbler, which summered in the US south and wintered in Cuba. Eight freshwater mussels in the south-east are officially extinct, as are eight Hawaiian birds. manatee underwater Hope for Florida’s dwindling manatees as review could restore protections Read more

The delisting, which was finalised in November after two years of study and consideration, came as no surprise to biologists and conservationists. Many of these species had not been seen in decades. But the announcement was a sobering reminder that the climate crisis and habitat destruction are accelerating an extinction crisis that threatens 2 million species globally.

Chicago’s 82-story Aqua Tower appears to flutter with the wind. Its unusual, undulating facade has made it one of the most unique features of Chicago’s skyline, distinct from the many right-angled glass towers that surround it.

In designing it, the architect Jeanne Gang thought not only about how humans would see it, dancing against the sky, but also how it would look to the birds who fly past. The irregularity of the building’s face allows birds to see it more clearly and avoid fatal collisions. “It’s kind of designed to work for both humans and birds,” she said.

As many as 1 billion birds in the US die in building collisions each year. And Chicago, which sits along the Mississippi Flyway, one of the four major north-south migration routes, is among the riskiest places for birds. This year, at least 1,000 birds died in one day from colliding with a single glass-covered building. In New York, which lies along the Atlantic Flyway, hundreds of species traverse the skyline and tens of thousands die each year.

There has been a lot of research into how seabirds choose their flight paths and find food. They seem to use their sight or sense of smell to assess local conditions.

Wandering albatrosses can travel more than 10,000km in a single foraging trip, though, and we don't know much about how these birds use mid- and long-range cues from their environment to decide where to go.

For the first time, however, my team's recent study gives an insight into how birds such as wandering albatrosses may use sound to determine what conditions are like further away.

If your ceaseless feasting at Christmas leaves you exhausted, it may be worth taking inspiration from reindeer: research suggests the animals can sleep while chewing.

During the summer months, reindeer spend most of their time munching foliage – an important activity given food can be scarce in the winter. However, a study suggests one way they balance their need to digest with the need to sleep is by multitasking.

For the second time this year, a rare hissing mushroom was spotted in Texas at a state park in Hill Country.

Known as the Texas star mushroom, the fungus is highly selective about where it grows, according to the Fort Worth Botanic Garden. The mushroom tends to grow on decaying cedar elm stumps in North and Central Texas.

It has made appearances in more than a dozen Texas counties, including Dallas, Tarrant, Collin and Denton. It has also been spotted in Oklahoma and perhaps surprisingly, Japan, making it one of the world's rarest mushrooms.

Scientists have discovered five new species of soft-furred hedgehogs from South East Asia.

The revelation required several scientific missions to the animals' tropical forest home to study them.

Researchers also re-evaluated specimens of the mammals which had been in museum collections for decades.

This detailed, biological spot-the-difference study revealed that two of the animals in the museums were new species to science.

Three others - that had been categorised as subtypes of one species - were confirmed to be sufficiently distinct from each other to be formally recognised as individual species.

Researchers at the California Academy of Sciences described 153 new animal, plant, and fungi species in 2023, enriching our understanding of Earth's biodiversity and strengthening our ability to regenerate the natural world. The new species include 66 spiders, 20 sea slugs, 18 plants, 13 sea stars, 12 geckos, 10 beetles, five fishes, four worms, two wasps, one sea snail, one scorpion, and one legless skink. More than a dozen Academy scientists—along with several international collaborators—described the new-to-science species.

This year's discoveries coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), and include several threatened plant and animal species that meet the criteria for formal ESA protections. These protections include prohibiting any harmful treatment of protected species; requiring further protection for land where endangered species occur; and implementing recovery plans for threatened populations.

Researchers at iDiv looked at long-term trends of land-based insects, such as beetles, moths, and grasshoppers, and found that decreases in the number of the formerly most common species have contributed most to local insect declines. Common or abundant insect species are those species that are locally found in the highest numbers, but which species these are differ among locations. The study's findings, published in Nature, challenge the idea that changes in insect biodiversity result from rarer species disappearing.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/9749057

Press Release from Center for Biological Diversity

Full text:

Conservation groups filed new legal challenges against the Federal Highway Administration today for failing to consider harms to threatened and endangered species, including the newly listed cactus ferruginous pygmy owl, from the proposed Interstate 11 in Arizona.

“Interstate 11 would decimate habitat for cactus ferruginous pygmy owls, who play a vital role in maintaining the health of the Sonoran Desert,” said Russ McSpadden, Southwest conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. “These small but fierce birds nest and raise their young in saguaro cacti and other desert trees that would be bulldozed for the highway’s construction. We’re fully committed to protecting these rare owls and their habitat from destruction.”

In 2022 the groups sued the Federal Highway Administration saying it sidestepped required environmental review before approving routes for the 280-mile-long highway between Nogales and Wickenburg. Today’s amended complaint says the agency also failed to analyze the highway’s threats to endangered species, as required under the Endangered Species Act.

In July the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service protected the cactus ferruginous pygmy owl as threatened. The agency identified highway development, and Interstate 11 specifically, as a significant threat to the owl’s survival.

Conservation groups say the owl’s new protections require federal officials to go back to the drawing board before moving to the next phase of choosing the highway’s exact route through Pima County.

“The agencies involved failed to consider the devastating harm from this project to already struggling plants and animals,” said Carolyn Campbell of the Coalition for Sonoran Desert Protection. “They’ve ignored the concerns of local communities, state and federal agencies, Tribal Nations, and conservationists. That alone is reason to stop this proposed project in its tracks."

In addition to the cactus ferruginous pygmy owl, other protected species whose habitat would be destroyed by the highway include Western yellow-billed cuckoos, Yuma Ridgway’s rails, Southwestern willow flycatchers and Pima pineapple cactus.

“Interstate 11 is a massive highway project that will have devastating impacts on habitat connectivity for some of Arizona’s most iconic and endangered species,” said David Robinson, director of advocacy at the Tucson Audubon Society. “We’re taking this action to ensure that the Federal Highway Administration and the Arizona Department of Transportation comply with the law and protect these important plants and animals from extinction.”

“We won’t stand by and watch our beloved desert destroyed for a highway we don't need, that local governments don’t want and that local groups have told ADOT is completely wrong,” said Tom Hannagan from Friends of Ironwood Forest. “The Sonoran Desert is a treasure worth protecting.”

Background

In November 2021 the Federal Highway Administration approved the 280‐mile‐long corridor for Interstate 11. Proponents envision it as part of an interstate route to Las Vegas that could eventually be expanded to cut across the entire western United States between Mexico and Canada. The Arizona Department of Transportation will decide the route through Pima County.

Objections to the proposed west option have come from the city of Tucson, city of Sahuarita, Pima County Board of Supervisors, U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the National Park Service. Their concerns include increased suburban sprawl, groundwater contamination, and degrading the wilderness, wildlife habitat and recreational values of Saguaro National Park West, Tucson Mountain Park and Ironwood Forest National Monument.

They’re also concerned the interstate would lead to development of conservation lands that have been set aside to mitigate the harm from other projects, including the Bureau of Reclamation's Tucson Mitigation Corridor, and lands protected under Pima County’s Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan.

Researchers at Anhui Normal University, Wuhu, China, have announced the discovery of a new species within the hedgehog genus Mesechinus. The eastern China hedgehog species was found to be distinct from other regional hedgehogs across morphological and phylogenetic characteristics.

In their paper, "A new species of forest hedgehog (Mesechinus, Erinaceidae, Eulipotyphla, Mammalia) from eastern China," published in the open access journal ZooKeys, the research team details the analysis resulting in the decision to formally describe a new species of hedgehog, Mesechinus orientalis.

Previously known Mesechinus species (M. dauuricus, M. hughi, M. miodon, and M. wangi) mainly inhabit northern China, Mongolia, Russia and southwestern China. This new species is exclusive to eastern China.

Since 2009, the Cambridge Conservation Initiative has coordinated an annual horizon scan, a well-established method for predicting which threats, changes, and technologies will have the biggest impact on biological conservation in the following year.

This year, the 15th horizon scan included 31 scientists, practitioners, and policymakers who developed a list of 96 issues, which they eventually narrowed down to the 15 most novel and impactful. Their findings, publishing in the journal Trends in Evolution & Ecology on December 18, include topics related to sustainable energy, declining invertebrate populations, and changing marine ecosystems.